


How to write 'Beautiful'

by WritingStruggles



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: English is hard, M/M, Tsukishima goes from tsundere to smooth in 0.001 second, Tsukishima-sensei, Yamaguchi stryggles, somebody stop me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 11:29:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5827000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingStruggles/pseuds/WritingStruggles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yamaguchi Tadashi was quite a good student.<br/>He didn't skip lessons, always came on time and all of his grades were above average. Except for one lesson. English.<br/>The only reason, he had, somehow, managed the lessons through middle and high school, was his friend, Tsukishima Kei.<br/>Tsukishima helps the poor guy. Though, not always in a right way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to write 'Beautiful'

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I came up with in 3 minutes while showering. That should explain the randomness.
> 
> Enjoy!

Yamaguchi Tadashi was quite a good student.  


He didn't skip lessons, always came on time and all of his grades were above average. Except for one lesson. English.  


Only the mention of this lesson made Yamaguchi cringe. He spent a lot of time on it, asked extra questions from the teacher (making him feel embarrassed about it later) and spent all his spare time on it. But for some reason, as soon as he was sure he finally remembered something; he'll forget it in a matter of a few days. He could handle the hard parts, such as constructing sentences and using articles. But he always messed up on the easiest things, like forgetting a meaning of the word and sometimes even letters. He liked writing in hiragana much more than in English letters.  


The only reason, he had, somehow, managed the lessons through middle and high school, was his friend, Tsukishima Kei. The guy was, in contrast to Yamaguchi, excellent in English.  


When Tsukishima found out about Yamaguchi's struggles in the foreign language, he agreed to help. Yamaguchi was, needless to say, overjoyed.  


"But only when it's critical, ok? I can’t help you with everything." was Tsukishima's condition, to which the shorter boy agreed whole-heartedly.  


So now the two, instead of relaxing on their lunch break, were bent over their textbooks, Tsukishima was explaining and Yamaguchi was hastily taking notes.  


"Is this part clear to you now?" the blonde asked, pointing at a sentence they just revised. Yamaguchi nodded quickly, "It's so easy when you explain it, Tsukki! I couldn't understand it before!"  


"You space out on the lessons, Yamaguchi, of course you won't understand." Tsukishima gave him an exasperated look.  


"Sorry, Tsukki!" Yamaguchi grinned. He didn't sound sorry in the least. Then a troubled look crossed his face as he flipped the page of his textbook. Tsukishima raised his eyebrows at Yamaguchi's expression.  


"What is it? Something else you don't understand?"  


"Rather than understanding..." Yamaguchi scratched the back of his head, furrowing his eyebrows at the textbook. Tsukishima peered into it. The page was a dictionary divided in two parts, Japanese and English. The Japanese words, written in smooth kanji and hiragana made the shaky English letters on the other side of the page stand out ugly. Tsukishima looked up at the boy across from him.  


"Are you for real?" he deadpanned.  


"I can't help it, okay?! I can't remember them!" Yamaguchi tried to defend himself, blushing in shame.  


"After all the studying…" Tsukishima crossed his arms.  


"Stop it, Tsukki." Yamaguchi covered his face.  


"After all the revising we did..."  


"STOP IT."  


"You can't fucking remember English letters?"  


Yamaguchi dropped his head onto the desk and groaned. Tsukishima sighed, adjusting his glasses, "You are hopeless."  


"I know," Yamaguchi mumbled. "And I can't even ask you for help, since it's so stupid."  


Tsukishima gazed at the brown-haired flop of misery in front of him. He was annoyed, but not at Yamaguchi. The blonde knew how much Yamaguchi struggled in English; still, despite all his efforts he couldn't master it.  


"Hey," Tsukishima tapped Yamaguchi's head with the back of his pencil. Yamaguchi shifted his head so he was looking up at Tsukishima, chin still on the desk. His mouth was set in a pout, eyes half-lidded in disappointment. Tsukishima had to raise his own textbook in front of Yamaguchi's face, to shield himself from how cute Yamaguchi looked.  


"Can't be helped, I'll help you with it, too." Yamaguchi immediately jumped upright, startling Tsukishima.  


"You will?!" Yamaguchi asked, joyfully. Tsukishima looked away from his sparkling eyes.  


"It's not like I have a choice. You'll mop around otherwise and it'll be a pain. Because we are around each other a lot, I mean. It'll be a pain to have you mop on me."  


Yamaguchi giggled at Tsukishima's embarrassed blabbering, "Thanks, Tsukki."  


The blonde just nodded, avoiding the others eyes.

A few minutes into studying Tsukishima set up a system for their mini session. He wrote Japanese words and left blank spaces next to them.  


"You have to write the translations to these words here," he pointed at the blank spaces. "In English letters, no hiragana." he added, making Yamaguchi pout once again.  


"Start now. We have only a few minutes before the lesson starts."  


"R-right!" Yamaguchi stammered in hurry.  


He didn't have many problems, surprisingly. Yamaguchi almost started feeling proud of himself; maybe he did know more than he thought he did. But it finished as soon as it started when he reached a word that made his thoughts hit a wall.  


"Uh, Tsukki?"  


"What?" Tsukishima looked up from his own textbook.  


"I don't know this word..." Yamaguchi said, scratching his head with the back of his pencil.  


Tsukishima checked the word, "Ah, this one."  


'Beautiful' was written in a single kanji.  


"It's written like 'utsuku' in Japanese hiragana, but I don't remember how to write it in English, not even in katakana." Yamaguchi said.  


"That's not too hard to write. Here." Tsukishima took the pencil out of Yamaguchi's hand and went to write the word, only to have an idea to pop up in his mind.  


He knew how to make Yamaguchi remember the word. Tsukishima grinned inwardly and scribbled the word down, showing it to Yamaguchi.  


"Here you go." He managed to disguise the mischief in his voice. He hoped his face didn’t give him out.  


Yamaguchi studied the word, and then smiled gratefully at Tsukishima, "It's easier than I thought! Thanks, Tsukki."  


Tsukishima smiled at the unsuspecting Yamaguchi, "You're welcome."  


***  


"Alright then," the teacher scanned the class, eyes settling on Yamaguchi. "Yamaguchi-kun, come to the board."  


"Yes!" the boy was stiff and nervous as he made his way to the blackboard.  


Teacher, seeing how anxious he was, went easy on him. She asked simple questions that requited logic only. But she was pleasantly surprised to see that Yamaguchi was actually well prepared.  


"Yamaguchi-kun, good job, you do know the material well. Now, as a final task, I'm going to have you write words on the blackboard. You had problems on the last test and I want to see if you have improved or not. Is that okay?"  


"Yes." Yamaguchi said, a bit unsurely.  


There were snickering in the class. Things like 'he can't write? Lame.' and ' wow, what an idiot.' reached Yamaguchi's ears making him gulp and look down.  


Tsukishima saw Yamaguchi's reaction and slowly turned to the sources of the noise, glared then let out a hissing 'shh'.  


Yamaguchi relaxed a bit when the whispering ended. He smiled too, as he recognised the voice that shushed the whole room. He sent Tsukishima a grateful glance.  


"Now, Yamaguchi-kun, take the chalk and write..." she started listing words and Yamaguchi wrote after her.  


Tsukishima's eyes followed every letter he wrote. He didn't make any mistakes.  


Teacher smiled at the correct words then at Yamaguchi, "You are making great progress!" Yamaguchi smiled modestly, blushing a bit.  


"And now the final word..." she paused thinking of a word to give him. Yamaguchi's hand hovered over the board in anticipation.  


"Write 'Beautiful'." she finally said.  


Yamaguchi brightened visibly. He just went over it with Tsukki. He wrote the word.  


There was a moment of silence, and then the whole room was filled with giggles. Yamaguchi flinched at the sudden commotion and looked at the class in confusion.  


"Um, Yamaguchi-kun." teacher had her mouth covered with a hand. She was holding in a giggle of her own, "Where did you learn how to write this word?"  


"A friend taught me...Is there something wrong with it?" Yamaguchi asked confused.  


"There's nothing wrong with the way you wrote it. It's just what you wrote doesn't mean beautiful." the teacher had trouble holding her smile in.  


"Huh? Then what does it say?" Yamaguchi questioned a bit anxious now. With the whole class and even the teacher laughing, it must've been a stupid word. Yamaguchi felt his face burn.  


“You wrote 'You', Yamaguchi-kun.” she said. “Whoever helped you must really like you." she put heavy emphasis on 'really'.  


Yamaguchi had his mouth agape and his entire face burned red. He turned to look at Tsukishima in horror and embarrassment.  


The said guy was looking out the window, in the most unsuspicious way. He was leaning his face on his palm, hiding the lower part of his face. The part that was hidden was currently pink and grinning. Tsukishima could practically hear the flustered and angry 'Tsukki!!' in his head.  


'I didn't write it wrong, though.' the blonde thought, face softening into a small smile.

After that Yamaguchi never forgot how to write 'beautiful' ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> Tsukishima is an asshole. But a smooth asshole.
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> hinabaelovesu.tumblr.com


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